A cochlear implant is a surgically implanted electronic device that provides a sense of sound to an individual who is deaf and/or hard of hearing. In an example, an effectiveness of a cochlear implant increases when the recipient of the cochlear implant receives auditory rehabilitation, e.g., relative to the effectiveness of the cochlear implant when the recipient does not receive auditory rehabilitation. Generally, auditory rehabilitation includes programs and/or activities that promote understanding of auditory signals, including, e.g., sounds, music, speech, and so forth.
In an example, auditory rehabilitation includes training an individual to recognize acoustic cues during communication. That is, the acoustic signal may be received, but phonetic and syntactic information must be extracted for the sound to have meaning to an individual. In this example, auditory rehabilitation trains an individual to listen for rhythm, inflection, intonation, and accent in speech communication. Auditory rehabilitation also trains an individual to recognize contextual cues in communication, including, e.g., whether the lips of an individual speaking are pursed or spread apart. Auditory rehabilitation may also train an individual in vowel recognition, as vowels may be the strongest voiced elements of speech.